This device could help clean the world's waterways -- and it's made by students at CU Denver

Engineering students at CU Denver built a device that removes trash from rivers. They have high hopes.

Author: Noel Brennan

Published: 1:59 PM MDT August 21, 2018

Updated: 7:13 PM MDT August 21, 2018

In the shadows of the bridge overhead, they pulled the big, metal contraption into the shallow water of Cherry Creek. The seniors from CU Denver tied straps to anchor the device in place. The current turned the large water wheel, which got the auger to start spinning.

Then, the students dropped aluminum cans into the creek and watched their feat of engineering get to work.

“We’re working on this environmental machine that cleans the rivers from trash,” said Rida Ezznagui, the lead engineer on the project. “It took us about three, four solid months to build this thing.”

Ezznagui and his senior mechanical design class spent an entire semester on the design. This summer, he and his teammates have been tweaking the prototype.

“The beautiful part here is it’s all mechanical,” Ezznagui said, demonstrating the device. “It works by the flow of the water that moves this wheel.”

The device collects floating trash by trapping it inside a tube with a spinning auger. The auger carries the trash upward and dumps it into a trash bag.